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Welcome to eZINE 36
The Birthday Special - and it's a big one!
On 27th April 1999 a new limited company was born.
This special Birthday eZINE contains the story of how it all
started, the things we've enjoyed creating in the last 10 years, future plans for
Vocal Process, and a host of good wishes from the people we have worked
with and taught since 1999. And look out for the goodie bag at the
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Yes, we're 10 years old
Thank you to everyone who has been sending us congratulatory
emails and letters - we've included some of your good wishes and
comments
throughout the eZINE and on the website. We'll be telling the story of
how we actually met, celebrating the landmarks we've shared, and
letting you in on a few of our future plans.
"Congratulations to Vocal Process on its 10th Anniversary.
Tom and I have been delighted to be involved with Vocal Process
over the last few years both as co-researchers with Gillyanne
and also as teachers on the Vocal Anatomy and Physiology
courses. We appreciate the way in which Vocal Process not only
provides excellent practical courses for singers and singing
teachers to improve their skills and to learn about their
instrument, but also the way in which they provide practical
resources, such as their e-books and for their willingness to
respond to questions from the public who are in vocal distress.
May they continue to flourish over the next 10 years."
Sara Harris,
President of the British Voice Association, Specialist Speech and Language Therapist
and contributor to the
Voice Clinic Handbook
How did it all start?
Our first meeting happened back in 1995. Gillyanne was running a
technique and performance workshop with an American musical
director. Jeremy - on a break from Carmen Jones – popped into one of
the sessions and very nearly got thrown out by Gillyanne, who
thought he was a gatecrasher!
In our very first
joint ‘gig’ Jeremy played for one of Gillyanne’s workshops at the
Actor’s Centre. The actors on the course kept asking how many years
we had been working together! A strong mutual interest in singing
information, performance and teaching led us to set up numerous
training workshops, including the hugely successful 8 day
training event with Jo Estill in 1997.
And on Tuesday 27th
April 1999 we formalised our joint ventures into a Limited Company –
10 years old today.
"Dear Jeremy and Gillyanne - Congratulations on 10 years
of Vocal Process! It's been a pleasure to work with you both
over the years and to have the privilege to learn from you!
Here's to another 10 years. With love"
Donna Soto-Morettini,
voice coach on I'd Do
Anything and author of
Popular Singing
Here are some highlights of those 10
years...
 The Millenium
was a bumper year for us – we renamed the company Vocal Process,
Gillyanne published the first edition of Singing and the Actor, we
got married and moved house!
During the next
three years we
moved on from the Estill organisation to concentrate on providing a
broader training programme. We wrote the book Successful Singing Auditions,
published in the UK, the US and Canada. The Singer, Opera Now, Zone
and Link magazines all featured our work in “revolutionising the
way singing is taught”. More courses followed, and Jeremy slaved
over more than one keyboard, playing for Hatstand Opera shows and
writing more than 300 articles for an operatic website. Our work
went international, with tours to Israel, Spain, the US and Sweden.
 2004-5
included the first run of our teacher training programme Integrated
VoiceTM, and the release of the Singing and the Actor
Audio Guide. Opera Now magazine declared “If you really want to
know about the inner workings of the human voice, you need to turn
to the work of Gillyanne Kayes and Jeremy Fisher and their very
thorough and comprehensive Vocal Process programme”.
2006-7 saw
the first endoscopy video ebook, downloaded in 23
countries and used in various voice departments including Cambridge
University. We sent our first charity donations to the
BVA and
BAPAM,
and
The Science Museum in London invited Jeremy to create a special Voicebox Video for their first singing and science events at the
Dana Centre.
Keen to keep
pushing the voice training boundaries, in 2008 we became the
first company to offer a 100% money-back guarantee on our flagship course, valid for a full year after you completed the
course. We re-released the Voicebox Videos ebooks as Mac downloads,
and upgraded the whole set onto DVD. And this year
we released the Constriction and Release DVD, with the
original pressing selling out in 6 hours.
Since the very
beginning of our relationship, we’ve been keeping voice-interested
people up-to-date with events, first in our snailmail newsletters,
and lately with our electronic magazines (not counting the special
announcements, we’re already up to eZINE 36).
During these 10 years,
Jeremy has
also acted as Musical Director
or pianist to several national tours including A Chorus Line,
Calamity Jane and Les Miserables. He revisited the Scarborough Spa
Orchestra after a 19 year absence (150 different concerts, 10
concerts a week, including accompanying Sir
Willard White), and has performed several hundred shows with Hatstand Opera.
"Congratulations to Vocal Process on its first decade! We
all love Jeremy here at Hatstand Opera, not just because he’s a
fab pianist but for his skill in helping our performers solve
tricky musical moments or vocal glitches in that short hour or
so of rehearsal between arrival at a venue and our all-important
dinner break! Yes, we do always eat before a show, and guess who
eats more than most..."
Kirsty Young, Director of
Hatstand Opera
Gillyanne is half-way through her PhD at the Institute of Education
in London, on the significance of genre in female singing voice,
with a special focus on voice qualities used in Contemporary
Commercial Music singing. And as if she wasn't busy enough,
Gillyanne is currently co-authoring a new series of multimedia books
for A&C Black - Singing Express - aimed at encouraging school
children and their teachers to sing.
"Vocal Process is of great value - as they have ambition
to put various vocal techniques through the narrow eye of vocal
science!"
Daniel Zangger Borch PhD, singer, trainer and voice
researcher and author of
Ultimate Vocal Voyage
Sharing information, promoting expertise
We've worked hard over the years to
provide clear, solid information and techniques on singing and voice
use. So forgive us if we take a few moments to celebrate the things
we've created in that time.
"Congratulations to Vocal Process on your 10th birthday!
It has been a great pleasure to be associated with the growth of
such a valuable training and resource organization for Voice.
Looking forwards to another decade of your achievements."
David Carey, Voice Practitioner at RADA and
co-author of The
Vocal Arts Workbook and DVD
"It has been a joy to watch the evolution of Vocal Process
over the past ten years. Gillyanne and Jeremy offer a valuable
service to education and performance in the vocal arts.
Congratulations on the occasion of your tenth anniversary!"
Meribeth Dayme, holistic vocal trainer and author of
Dynamics of the Singing Voice, and The Singing Voice.
Training courses
Gillyanne has been creating and
presenting singing workshops for more than 20 years, so it was
natural that this would be the main focus for the first few years of
our company. Even to write a list of the courses we've presented and
sponsored would take too much space (it's probably close to 200
events), so let's highlight a few of them.
 Singing and the Actor Training
is our flagship course, and the one we both feel most proud of. It's
three days of intensive training, and is (as far as we know) the
only singing training course in the UK that is guaranteed for a year
after you've completed it. The next run is in July, and you
can find out more about what you learn on it by visiting the
dedicated
Singing and the Actor Training page here.
We were also particularly proud of our
Musical Theatre Intensive, which ran for two years at the
Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. It was one of the first
weekend courses to combine vocal function with acting, the song
journey and auditioning skills, and featured four guest trainers.
Vocal Process is one of the very few
organisations worldwide to offer regular Computer Voice Training
days, designed to help you improve both your vocal accuracy and your
listening skills.
Jeremy's particular favourite is
Teaching In Your Studio - a practical combination of
NLPTM-based communication skills and Vocal Process analytical
processes. This is normally part of Module Two of our teaching
training programme, but we're looking at opening this out to the
general public in the near future.
 And the biggest one of all
(see right) was our free On The House event in central
London! It was on this special showcase course in 2003 that we introduced
for the first time our Integrated VoiceTM
teacher training programme.
Our Belting Explained course
has been running as long as the company, and is still extremely
popular.
And we have recently added a new course, Find Your Power
Voice, which will be appearing regularly on our future course
timetable.
"Vocal Process, Gillyanne and Jeremy completely changed my
professional life. My Kentwood Show Choir and students have all
now progressed in all aspects of vocal technique - especially
the open throat, singing with less effort, and connection with
our own bodies. Thank you so much and congratulations on your
10th birthday."
Sheila Harrod, voice coach, Kentwood voice studio and
founder of the award-winning
Kentwood Show Choir
"Happy Birthday from Motherwell College! Vocal Process has
played a major role in the development of musical theatre
courses at Motherwell College. Both staff and students have
benefited greatly from Gillyanne and Jeremy's expertise and we
look forward to future collaborations as we move to our new
campus in August 2009."
Gillian Archibald, Curriculum Leader for Performing Arts at
Motherwell College
INSETs and masterclasses
In addition to giving masterclasses on
Musical Theatre and contemporary vocal techniques, we've recently
been helping vocal pedagogy students clarify their own practice, and
sharing our analytical processes with teachers and trainers working
with all ages of performer.
We also love the challenge of working with
people from different cultures, particularly where English is not
the first language. We both enjoy travelling, and have given
workshops and presentations together and separately in the US,
Israel, Sweden, Iceland, The Netherlands and Spain.
"Heartfelt congratulations to
Gillyanne, Jeremy and the expertise behind Vocal Process. We’re
so appreciative of the contribution in knowledge, insight and
inspiration your work has provided to the vocal artistic and
pedagogic branch around the world over the past decade. The
results of your workshops in Stockholm the other month
continually make itself present as I pass the corridors of the
college and hear the singers practicing their belting techniques
and opening their minds as much as their voices. Thank you for
the hard work and the ongoing commitment – see you in Sweden
again soon!"
Ian Plaude, Rektor of
Stockholm's
University College of Music Education
Integrated Voice
 Integrated VoiceTM is Gillyanne's
brainchild.
Gillyanne
says: I wanted to offer a cohesive training for teachers
that looked at voice as one instrument - singing and speaking using
the same mechanics in different ways. I felt it was important to
equip teachers to work in many different genres, and wanted to distil
my own 25+ years of teaching and research in classical and
non-classical singing so that other teachers could benefit.
The three Modules cover both the How
and the What of teaching, with a blend of practical skills and
cutting-edge information. Diagnostic proficiency sits side by side
with communication skills, practical exercises and routines, and the
ability to deal with different ages and musical/vocal styles.
We have found over the years that the
people taking part in Integrated VoiceTM have gone on to
raise their teaching profile, increase both income and satisfaction
in their work, and even make life-changing decisions in their choice
of career. Since we expect the participants to have an active
professional life, the Modules are taught as a combination of
weekend courses, distance learning and one-to-one support, and are
mainly organised around each group's personal timetable.
"Congratulations on the first 10 years of Vocal Process. A
success story going from strength to strength! The Integrated
Voice course was invaluable. It was hard work - as well as being
fun! Well worth considering
if you want to improve your own singing or become a vocal
coach!"
Sue Lampard, barbershop trainer and one of the first
Integrated VoiceTM
Modules 1 and 2
participants
"From actress and frustrated singer to actress and
confident singer… and vocal coach working at 2 drama colleges.
You guys… thoughtful, provocative, intelligent, challenging,
supportive, kind… bringing some amazing people together to run
the courses alongside you. I’ll always remember how in my
interview for the Integrated Voice programme you were able to,
as Jeremy put it, “unpick” my vague ideas and make me sound
focused.
It’s a privilege and a pleasure to know you and to work with
you! Thanks for all the opportunities."
Pamela Hall, actress, singing and spoken voice coach,
and one of the first Integrated VoiceTM
Modules 1 and 2
participants
We're currently on the fourth run of
Module One. If you are interested in joining us for the next run of
Module One, remember that the
Singing and the Actor Training (due in July) is a pre-requisite.
Read, watch, listen, make
"How wonderfully coincidental that both 'Funky 'n Fun' and
Vocal Process are sharing their 10th birthday this year! I'm so
appreciative of the support and collegial friendship I've shared
with Gillyanne and Jeremy over the years.
This inspirational couple, along with their complimentary
skills, can be utterly relied upon to provide impartial,
evidence-based, relevant information about the voice in its
various forms through their excellent variety of courses. Here's
to many more years of reliable, high quality vocal instruction
delivered with a smile and a nice cup of tea!"
Kim Chandler,
session singer, trainer and creator of the
innovative Funky 'n Fun CD series
We've had a great deal of fun (and
more than a little frustration) sharing vocal and performance
information over the years. Here
are just a few of the different formats Vocal Process has created
since 1999:
Singing
and the Actor
 Really where it all started. Gillyanne spent much of 1999 in a
corner of the kitchen in our tiny council flat, writing the first
edition of the book (published right at the beginning of this
century). It's grown over the years, with a major rewrite for the
second edition. (Apparently you're only supposed to update a few
things in a second edition, but no-one told Gillyanne, so she
rewrote and upgraded almost half of the book). We understand that
the publishers were a bit taken aback... But it must have worked, as
the book became an official bestseller in Spring 2008, and continues
to sell all over the world.
Successful
Singing Auditions
 Gillyanne and Jeremy wrote the next book together in 2002, with much
of the information based on Jeremy's years (and thousands of
auditions) as a much-sought-after audition pianist. The book is
absolutely packed with tips, ideas and information on exactly how
auditions work, how to choose repertoire for yourself, and how to
work effectively with a pianist you'll meet for the first time on
stage. In fact, our editor worried that there was enough information
in it for three books, but we're not ones for stinting.
Singing
and the Actor Audio Guide
 We quickly realised that readers of the book would benefit from
hearing some of the sounds and exercises Gillyanne was describing,
so we decamped to the recording studio. Anyone working in studios
will tell you that recording 38 tracks in two days is pretty
ambitious, but our singers, Jenny and Jon, stayed on the ball
throughout. There was even an outtake of Jeremy doing the mirening
demonstration that we later snuck onto the website. The CD made an appearance in 2005
and has been selling steadily ever since.
Looking at a Voice ebook
 New
Year's Day 2006 saw Jeremy getting out of bed determined to create
something brand new. The UK's first endoscopy video ebook download
was born that day, and was featured on two BBC Science programmes,
broadcast to an estimated 44,000,000 people. It had always been
Jeremy's intention to create a series of six Voicebox Videos, and
the final one, Working the Soft Palate, appeared 18 months later. In
2008 Jeremy released the second edition of the series, adding
Mac-compatible downloads to the existing PC versions.
Voicebox Videos
 Also
in 2008, due to the demand for the Voicebox Videos from university
departments and presenters, we released the entire set of six
Voicebox Videos on one DVD. The videos were saved at a higher
specification, on a single region-free DVD, enabling teachers and
trainers to use them in presentations around the world. As with the
ebooks, Vocal Process has continued to donate 10% of the purchase
price to voice-related charities. The current charities to benefit
from these sales are the British Voice Association and the British
Association for Performing Arts Medicine (BAPAM). Since we began
selling the Voicebox Videos, the donations to each charity have gone
up in value three-fold.
Constriction and Release DVD
 January
this year saw the first Vocal Process training techniques DVD,
showing footage from the Singing and the Actor Training course. The first
pressing of the DVD genuinely sold out in 6 hours, with the first
response arriving within 3 minutes of sending out the letter. The
DVD still hasn't had its official release (the information has only
been sent to our eZINE subscribers), but it is already in its third
pressing. Incidentally, we had one email enquiry recently asking us
if our stories were just hype - we're glad to say we don't
make anything up, it really does happen!
And the freebies!
Vocal Process wouldn't be the same without the freebies. Quite apart
from the 300-page website, we've created a number of resources that
cost nothing to access.
 The
first endoscopy video ebook download,
Looking at a Voice,
is also now free to download, either for PC or for Mac. You can also
pass it on freely to your friends and colleagues. For full
instructions on how to collect a copy directly onto your computer,
click on the above
link to go to the download page.
 Jeremy's
very first ebook,
86 Things You Never Hear A Singer Say, is free to
all eZINE subscribers, and was written with the help of several
singers, actors, recording artists and two heads of department at
illustrious training institutions who prefer to remain anonymous...
If you haven't picked up a copy of it, just email us and we'll send
one to you.
 And
of course, there's the now famous Vocal Process
Build Your Own
Larynx. The template has been on the website almost since the
beginning, and is still being downloaded several times a day.
There's now a fun silent movie to go with the template, showing
Jeremy making a larynx from start to finish in just over 4 minutes.
Click on the
YouTube
Build Your Own Larynx link here to watch it, then download the free
updated template and make it yourself.
 The
website
The Vocal Process
website was created as a public resource, historical archive, information centre and
one of the main windows on our work. The site has grown up with us,
since the original 15-page version that Jeremy personally designed
and built (and uploaded and swore over). This first incarnation
included our original, hand-drawn logo (see right). Even though it
took three months to create, Jeremy was very proud of it!
 As
the company grew, so did the website.
The second incarnation appeared in August 2003, receiving a facelift
(shown left) in December 2004.
The current site went live in July
2005, designed by our good friend and colleague
David Siddall. David
is also responsible for the BVA website, (and our DVD cover designs)
and is a delight to work with. The site now extends to more than
300 pages of information, articles, interviews and archives, with a
special section devoted to the entire syllabus of the Integrated VoiceTM teacher training programme.
In the last few months we've added new
resources to the site, including the
Vocal Process MusicalStore, a
specialist niche store with hundreds of musical theatre scores, song
collections, books and related goodies.
The Vocal Process website has literally hundreds of
visitors each day, with the figures this year topping 10,000 in one
week.
 Finally,
we mustn't forget the free Vocal Process newsletters, now in eZINE
form. This is the 36th edition in this incarnation alone, and the
original newsletters go all the way back to 1999. In those days, it
cost us almost £1,000 to design, print and snailmail each newsletter
around the world (see left). The first electronic magazine version
appeared on the website in 2003 (right). Now we're on email, it's much quicker and easier
to get valuable and time-sensitive information out to you as things
happen.
The future?
"It is so important that science and art come together towards a
better understanding of singing performance and Vocal Process
have been at the heart of such work in such a practical way for
a WHOLE DECADE! Very well done - here's to your next decade when
I hope we see an increase in such activities!"
Professor David M Howard, Dept of Electronics, York
University, co-author of The
Voice Clinic Handbook, and
Voice Science, Acoustics and Recording
"As the name suggests, the importance of this institute is
judged by its dynamics and keeping up to date with the latest
cutting edge knowledge of many disciplines and more important,
integrating that knowledge into a consolidated teaching
programme for healthy voices.
Thanks to Gillyanne and Jeremy for their quest for knowledge and
their enthusiasm and integrity in applying knowledge in their
own studies, research and pedagogic approach in teaching voice.
Let's wish them a happy anniversary and many years of developing
and progressing their programme."
Jacob Lieberman DO,
MA, Reg. Osteopath and Psychotherapist and
Specialist in
Voice Disorders
Jeremy will be
hard at work locked in a room with his video editing equipment to
produce more training DVDs. Gillyanne's new series of multimedia
training products for the publishers A&C
Black - Singing Express - will be introducing new music and voice techniques to children from Key
Stage 1 upwards. The first is due out this Autumn.
We'll be unveiling
a new focus on personal vocal training and one-to-one intensive
coaching, and there are appearances outside London planned in
the next few months.
And since we've
already been called the company with the "unique approach to
voice" (Opera Now magazine), we've got some really innovative plans for the
future. But they are still under wraps, so watch this space!
Our
special birthday celebration offer
You know the score, you come to the party, eat the cake, wear the
hat, but it isn't a real party unless you have a goodie bag to
take home. Well, in our party goodie bag, should you choose to
accept it, is a special birthday celebration offer.
We're
offering you the chance to get a copy of the Singing and the Actor
Audio Guide for half price. Yes, normally retailing at £13.99, you
can get it for the next seven days for £6.99. Just add the
Audio Guide to the Vocal Process shopping cart and type in special
code HappyBirthdayVP
to claim your discount. Remember, this code only appears in this eZINE, you
won't find it anywhere else, so
no party poopers allowed!
And finally
 Jeremy's blog
this month contains thoughts and an extract of a BBC interview on
touring, 20 second vocal warmups and the most important thing for
singers.
The blog itself is celebrating more than three years of thoughts, comments and articles on
singing, performance, musical theatre and auditioning. The complete
archive is still available, so check it out
by clicking on the box.
http://www.singingcoach.blogspot.com
Jeremy's Singingcoach blog is also being featured on the excellent
Collaborative Piano blog - the number one blog for accompanists
and pianists who work with other performers.
 
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